Doorstop Interview
E & OE
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Thank you all very much for coming this morning.
I just have three things that I would like to cover. Firstly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of Curtis Cheng at this very difficult time. Secondly, our cultural diversity is very important here in Australia. It is very much at the heart of who we are. I know that, at this difficult time, there will be people who will question our diversity and so it’s really important to remember some key statistics that have been borne out by the Scanlon research. And that is that 92% of us feel a sense of belonging, 88% of us believe in the values of our Australian way of life and 85% of us believe multiculturalism has been good for Australia. Thirdly, I welcome the comments of people like Dr Jamal Rifi, who say that the terror that we are facing has to be dealt with from within the Muslim communities.
In May, Prime Minister Abbott asked me to take on added responsibilities, not just as Parliamentary Secretary to the then Minister for Social Services where I look after multicultural affairs and settlement services, but also to undertake community engagement in relation to countering violent extremism. As a consequence of that, I spent and have spent months travelling around Australia. I wrote to 160 Muslim organisations and, bit by bit, I have been travelling around Australia and speaking with those organisations, often behind closed doors and really getting a frank assessment from them as to where they perceive the problems are, but also understanding from them the nature of the dialogue that they want with the Commonwealth Government. And so today, Dr Rifi’s comments are very welcome because it’s not just about dialogue, it is about actually understanding the problem, working together, but also owning not just the problem but owning how we are going to work together to resolve this insidious attack on our young people.
Journalist:
You say Muslim leaders should own the problem, do you think there is a lack of leadership when it comes to coming out and condemning these sorts of attacks?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
This act should be condemned by all Australians, irrespective of their background. One of the things that I found as I was speaking to different Muslim leaders is that different leaders have dealt with these issues in different ways. There is no one common leadership in the Muslim communities. Therefore, I found it was really important, as I travelled around, to actually get from different people their perceptions on what the issues were and also to look at some of the positive things that different communities were doing around Australia in terms of dealing with young people.
Let’s not forget that young people can go off the rails for any number of reasons. I have been saying this for months and months. I come from a background of social policy, I have been involved in this for a long time. I am a former chair of Father Chris Riley’s Youth Off The Streets. When our young people go off the rails, if the first person that befriends them is a drug dealer, they will turn to drugs. If the person that befriends them is part of a gang, they will join that gang. If that person is a gambler, they will become a gambler. What we are seeing here is that young people, who are disengaged, who are at the margins, are being preyed upon. Just like paedophiles prey on young people, they are being preyed upon, most especially at the margins of society and are being radicalised and are being induced to undertake actions. That is really where we have to work with the communities. We cannot be in the homes, we cannot be in the schools. Government cannot do this alone. They have to do this in partnership with those communities but those communities need to be willing partners in not just talking about the problems but also in actively engaging, in terms of developing programs and processes where they can assist.
Journalist:
There are suggestions that the 15-year-old was witness to a very fiery sermon on Friday, that he was also involved in a prayer group that was aside to the sermon. Have we got to the bottom of what was said in the sermon and who was involved in this prayer group?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
I think that is going to be a matter for the NSW authorities and the relevant authorities. More will come out as part of this investigation. I am sure those issues will be canvassed as part of that.
Journalist:
Do you think that the approach of some of the mosque leaders need to have is more governance of what is said and done within the auspices of the mosques?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
As I have travelled around Australia, I have gone to see many organisations and have attended mosques and spoken to organisation leaders and attended many mosques. They are all run in their own way. Certainly, as I have travelled around, there have been suggestions made to me about issues of governance. As I indicated earlier, I was asked by then PM Abbott to undertake responsibilities in both the Social Services and Attorney-General’s portfolios, in recognition of the fact that there is an overlap in terms of what happens in the social services portfolio, particularly in terms of social cohesion and the prevention strategy and what happens at the hard end, the national security end, of countering extremism.
Can I just say, this is not to say and not to make excuses for young people: young people go off the rails for all sorts of reasons. Having said that, there are young people amongst the groups and amongst the groups that are seeking to travel overseas, who are bent, and who do have a criminal intent. They do want to go over and rape, plunder and pillage. That is why they are going and they are being induced to go over. They are being induced with promises of AK-47s, drugs and women. I have heard that from people who have had dialogue with the young people. I’ve actually had the opportunity to speak with young people who are working with young people, who wanted to travel overseas. The solution rests in a range of different options and part of what I was now going to do was report to the Prime Minister and I certainly will be reporting to Prime Minister Turnbull, about my findings and also to the Attorney-General under whose been auspices CVE rests.
Journalist:
There has been fresh talk about whether the citizenship stripping laws should go ahead. What is your belief on that? Should it go ahead as proposed to be amended?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
As you may know, Phillip Ruddock and I led consultations in relation to citizenship and citizenship generally. Whilst the citizenship laws that you are referring to were particularly canvassed by the Joint Standing Committee and their recommendations are out there, our discussion, our conversation with the Australian public was on a broader issue, about citizenship and how much more citizenship should be valued. Mr Ruddock and myself are in the process of finalising that report and that will be released in due course. At this point in time, I do not believe that there should be changes to those citizenship laws. We will be making certain recommendations and I don’t wish to…
Journalist:
You mean to the proposed laws?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
The proposed laws have been considered by the Joint Standing Committee. The Joint Standing Committee made recommendations and the Government and Opposition have accepted those recommendations and, in my view, they should go ahead, yes.
Journalist:
A boy has been arrested at the school where the shooter attended also, how concerned are you, this is the second person from that school allegedly involved with ISIL and furthermore, do you think plans – the programmes in schools, the de-radicalisation programmes need to be ramped up?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
As I have been saying for work quite some time, we need to work with those people that are close to our young people. Young people can go off the rails for all sorts of reasons. There may be issues at home. They may be bullied. There may be any number of reasons why young people go off the rails. What is very clear is that involvement, radical involvement, involvement with Daesh, is now what has been termed to me ‘a new way to rebel’. It is very clear that our strategies now have to be associated with the people that are around the young people. Their families, their teachers, their community leaders, their friends and so, we need to make sure that there are avenues open for those people to seek help but not necessarily just in the national security arena.
Journalist:
So the programmes need to be ramped up then in schools?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
In my view, I think that we need now to have a look at what we are doing. It is very clear that we now need to review what we are doing, reset the agenda and work much more closely with the communities, in terms of the developing of our programs but also learn from this experience and certainly from some of the great ideas that I have obtained as I have travelled around Australia. There are some good things that are being done by different groups around Australia, often mostly without Government assistance. That includes, for example, some of the work that has been done peer to peer. Young people will always take far greater notice of their own peers, particularly where those peers have had some experience, and been exposed to Daesh and wanted to travel and have now realised that that was a wrong way of doing business. So for example that could be one very good way. I don’t want to pre-empt what we may do into the future but there are good things that are being done by different organisations around Australia and I think it is important that we do learn from those positive things that are happening.
[Ends]